Article 254 Repugnancy of Laws

Article 254 Repugnancy of Laws is the constitutional rule that governs conflicts between Union and State legislation enacted on subjects in the Concurrent List (List III of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution of India). Its textual basis lies in Part XI, Chapter I, which distributes legislative power between Parliament and the State Legislatures under Article 246. Whereas Article 246 establishes who may legislate on which subjects across the Union List (List I), State List (List II), and Concurrent List (List III), Article 254 supplies the tie-breaking principle when both the Union and a State validly legislate on the same Concurrent List entry and their provisions collide. The clause embodies the doctrine of federal supremacy, a feature inherited conceptually from the Government of India Act, 1935, whose Section 107 was the direct precursor of the present Article. The framers retained a quasi-federal structure in which the Centre's will overrides that of the States in the shared legislative domain.

The mechanics of Article 254(1) operate in two steps. First, a court must find that both a law made by Parliament (which Parliament is competent to enact) and a law made by a State Legislature relate to a matter in the Concurrent List and that the two are genuinely repugnant — that is, they cannot stand together because obedience to one entails disobedience to the other, or they occupy the same field with inconsistent commands. Second, once repugnancy is established, the central law prevails and the State law becomes void "to the extent of the repugnancy." The State law is not wholly struck down; only the conflicting portion is rendered inoperative, and it may revive if the central inconsistency is later removed. Repugnancy may arise from direct conflict, from Parliament evincing an intention to occupy the whole field, or from the central law constituting a complete and exhaustive code on the subject.

Article 254(2) creates an important exception that restores a measure of State autonomy. If a State Legislature enacts a law on a Concurrent List subject that is repugnant to an earlier central law, and that State law is reserved for the consideration of the President under Article 200 and receives Presidential assent, the State law prevails within that State notwithstanding the repugnancy. This is a deliberate channel for accommodating regional variation. The proviso to Article 254(2) preserves Parliament's ultimate primacy: Parliament may at any time enact a law on the same matter, including a law adding to, amending, varying, or repealing the State law that had received assent. Thus Presidential assent confers a conditional and revocable supremacy on the State, never a permanent one.

Contemporary applications are frequent. The Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004, the Tamil Nadu jallikattu ordinance and the resulting Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Act, 2017, and several State amendments to the three repealed central farm laws of 2020 all turned on Article 254 questions. State amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure and to land-acquisition law have repeatedly been routed for Presidential assent under Article 254(2). The Supreme Court applied the provision in M. Karunanidhi v. Union of India (1979), in Hoechst Pharmaceuticals v. State of Bihar (1983), and in State of Kerala v. Mar Appraem Kuri Co. (2012), which clarified that repugnancy can arise even before a central enactment is brought into force.

Article 254 must be distinguished from Article 251, which resolves conflicts arising when Parliament legislates on a State List subject under Articles 249, 250, or 252 — there, too, the central law prevails, but the mechanism is distinct and confined to those special circumstances. It is also separate from the doctrine of pith and substance, which determines whether a law falls within a competent legislature's field in the first place, and from the doctrine of colourable legislation. Article 254 presupposes that both laws are valid in their own field and addresses only the consequence of their overlap. Practitioners must also keep the rule distinct from Article 246A, the GST provision, which created a special concurrent taxing power outside the ordinary List III scheme.

Edge cases and controversies persist. Courts continue to refine when a central statute "occupies the field" and whether silence in central law signals deliberate non-regulation or mere omission. The revival of a State law after the repealing central law is itself repealed has produced litigation. The use of Article 254(2) has become a flashpoint in Centre–State relations, particularly where Governors delay reserving Bills for Presidential consideration or the President withholds assent without time limit — issues that reached the Supreme Court in disputes over gubernatorial inaction in Tamil Nadu and other States in 2023–2024. The absence of a fixed timeline for Presidential decision under Article 201 remains a structural gap.

For the working practitioner — the policy researcher mapping legislative competence, the desk officer advising on a State Bill, or the UPSC aspirant preparing GS Paper II — Article 254 is the operative hinge of Indian cooperative and competitive federalism. It explains why States must seek Presidential assent for divergent criminal, labour, or agricultural legislation, why the Centre can override regional experimentation, and how repugnancy disputes shape the practical balance of power. Mastery of the distinction between Articles 246, 251, and 254, together with the leading judgments, is indispensable for any analysis of Indian federal dynamics.